In a traditional publishing situation, once you get your manuscript through the agent and accepted by a publisher, they are responsible for shepherding it from there on out. They send an editor, a designer and a marketer your way and, from what I've heard, you do what they tell you. When you choose to self-publish, you are free to direct the process as you see fit, and I've loved that control and freedom.
But, it does mean a lot of responsibility. For example, editing. I was on my own to figure out who to ask to edit my manuscript, which meant I had to figure out what "good" editing was, which meant... well, it all meant that it was pretty much up to me. Gulp.
I did the first round of edits on my own book. It helped, but you get to a point where you need outside opinions to move forward. I did eventually hire a professional to edit my manuscript and it cost $5/ page, which came out to around $1100. It was a big chunk of change for me, but one that was worth every penny and more.
But what I did in between my own edit and my paid edit was enlist friends of mine who were word and story geeks like me (of the four, all four had advanced English-related degrees and have an overlapping enjoyment of reading in general). I asked four friends to read through my manuscript and offer honest, brutal feedback. I asked specific questions. I gave them examples of the kind of cuts and edits I was making and the kinds of suggestions I wanted. I made sure they knew I was serious about it and going to take their suggestions seriously, and then I mailed off four manuscripts and bit my nails for weeks until I heard back :)
The feedback turned out to be amazing and was beyond valuable for crafting the book. My book was much better for having been read by these four, and because I prepped them and asked specific questions, I got actionable feedback that didn't pull any punches.
I used their feedback to draft a third draft before paying the professional, and I think it was a critical phase. I got compassionate but insightful feedback from people who wanted my book to be good, but who also knew enough about books to tell me what was amiss.
I highly recommend "Friend Editors" to anyone self-publishing a book.
On my end, I couldn't pay them, but I did everything I could to say thank you, from connecting them to people I knew who could help their projects to writing about them on my blog.
Have any of you worked with friends as editors and had either a good or bad experience?
Image courtesy of Phil Gyford via flickr
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